Craig Lucas' The Dying Gaul, which recently received high critical praise but a short life at the Vineyard Theatre, may return to that Off-Broadway company this fall for a unspecified length of time.

Vineyard spokesman Sam Rudy told Playbill On-Line that discussions were underway to remount the play at the Vineyard, possibly in September.

"There definitely was enough of a groundswell of support for the play in the last weeks, both critically and from the audience, to justify looking into bring it back," he said. The Dying Gaul drew critical huzzahs from many corners -- including The Wall Street Journal, which called it "the best play of the year." The review in The New York Times, however, was slighting, and the play closed on June 14.

Rudy said casting was tentative and dependent on people's schedules. The recent run starred Linda Edmond, Tim Hopper, Robert Emmet Lunney and Tony Goldwyn, who stepped in at the last moment when Cotter Smith suffered a back injury on May 8.

The play may also have a future on the big screen. Lucas' agent Peter Franklin said there had been interest in the movie rights to the drama. Dying Gaul examines the nature of people's responsibility to one another through the tale of a struggling screenwriter who becomes professionally and emotionally compromised by his relationship to a studio boss and his wife.

If the show is remounted, it would be the third straight Off-Broadway effort by director Mark Brokaw to enjoy an extended life. Both Brokaw's productions of Paula Vogel's How I Learned To Drive and Douglas Carter Beane's As Bees in Honey Drown transferred to open-ended runs at commercial Off-Broadway houses.

Lucas' last play was the poorly received God's Heart. His other works include Blue Window and Prelude To s Kiss.

-- By Robert Simonson